Gilbert Ling and ion pumps

The controversy surrounding the existence of ion pumps is summarised along with Gilbert Ling’s challenge to the mainstream. Ion channels are hypothesised to be temporary artefacts and to have a passive role only, with the main pumping action performed by an invisible electromagnetic biofield. Ling’s energy calculations must be incorrect owing to a limited understanding of the physics of water, mistaken ideas as to the nature of the pumping, and the general inadequacy of contemporary physics with respect to biological systems.

Ion pumps and cellular membranes

Conventional biology maintains that a sodium-potassium balance within a cell is achieved via the existence of physical kinetic pumps which somehow move the ions from outside to inside of the cell or vice-versa. (See diagram below)

A different pump exists for each mineral ion or each molecule which needs to be pumped, prompting an immediate criticism from some that the membrane of a cell should be dominated by perforations and should start to lose its structural integrity because of this.

Ling gives a list of 20 possible types of pump in [1] Table 1 – “A Partial List of Postulated Membrane Pumps”

The energy problem

Ling made calculations of the amount of energy required to do all this pumping and claimed huge disparities between the quantities required and what was actually available.

However, with improvements made on all aspects of the work, the minimum energy needs of the postulated sodium pump have grown from 4-times to respectively 30-times (or 3060%), 15-times (or 1542%) and 18-times (or 1800%) of the maximally available energy-that is, if all energy available to the muscle cells is devoted exclusively to pumping Na+, and if each and every intermediate step involved is 100% efficient.

The squid experiment

The cytoplasm was removed from the giant nerve fibre of a squid and the axon sac filled with “sea water containing the right nutrients” [2] [3]. However the membrane failed to maintain the correct concentrations of sodium and potassium, leading to the conclusion that no ion pump was present in the membrane.

The frog muscle experiment

A frog muscle was sliced to produce “effectively membrane-less open ended cell” which continued to regulate both sodium and potassium [3].

Thereby suggesting that no membrane is necessary.

Discovery of the biofield structure preceded discovery of the physical pump

This retrospective begins with the first recording of the Na⁺ and K⁺ currents underlying the action potential in the squid giant axon reported by Hodgkin and Huxley in 1952, which made the question of where ions pass through the membrane more compelling. The notion of channels in the membrane had been around for quite some time but was so vague and contested that even the recording of Na⁺ and K⁺ currents through the membrane was not considered sufficient proof of their existence. In fact, Hodgkin and Huxley never referred to ion channels in their papers, only currents and conductances. [4]

If we are concerned with the movement of charged particles within biological systems then surely the ambient electric field structure is of the greatest importance. If scientists have discovered such structures then the problem of how ions are moved is solved and any appearance of physical channels is of secondary concern.

Such is the fixation of scientists on material causes that the movement of ions along a conductive pathway is not considered proof of the existence of a channel. Some sort of channel must exist and its physical form will be a reflection of the local electromagnetic structure: main thesis

The scientists will invert cause and effect and formulate the physical structure as the active agent trying to claim that it is this which is the kinetic ‘pump’ responsible for moving charged particles against a field gradient.

Stefan Lanka on membranes

I hope I am recalling Stefan’s words correctly from various videos.

Lanka claims that there are no cell membranes in living systems and that the tissue is ‘continuous’. However, if an apple, say, is cut then some sort of bi-layer is immediately constructed and mistaken for an extant membrane; living organisms are not constructed from ‘cells’ but from ’tissue’.

How to resolve these apparent contradictions?

Mainstream science is insistent upon the existence of ‘pumps’ but their existence seems an impossibility.

How can we take into account all the available observations in a consistent manner?

A hypothesis from Biofield Physics

Mainstream science is clearly fixated upon ‘material’ causes for everything including electromagnetic fields. The insistence is that a moving electromagnetic field is produced by the movement of ‘charge’ which is attached, somehow, to ‘matter’.

The main thesis of Biofield Physics, however, is a direct of inversion of this and is that all movement of matter in biological systems is preceded by and caused by, the modulation of an electromagnetic biofield.

The field is primal and causal and it is here that we should look for answers.

Stefan Lanka’s observations

Biological tissue may be continuous but there are large electrical gradients at the boundaries of each visible cell which maintain the overall ‘cellular’ structure. Each cell represents an electromagnetic vortex system and each boundary is an indication of a gradient change in the underlying field.

This electromagnetic field breaks down somewhat under a microscope slide and a cellular arrangement becomes manifest in the physical structure. We cannot rule out the possibility that the energies from the microscopy process have some meaningful effect upon the tissue.

If an apple is broken then there a layer is created which is exposed and cut off from the surrounding biofield. A change in the biofield means a change in the tissue structure and since field propagation is at the speed of light, this change can be seen as immediate.

New tissue constructed very rapidly according to the ambient energy and biological material available. Such construction is very close to the basic laws of physics and not at all a laborious process involving DNA transcription.

The ‘pumps’ themselves

The visible ‘pumps’ (below) are constructed by the biofield as and when appropriate. Construction is rapid and according to the laws of biofield Physics as with the cell membrane above.

The pumping action is via electromagnetic forces as opposed to mechanical. The ‘pumps’ are therefore passive channels which allow the ions to flow; they are not active pumps.

There may well be a distinct channel morphology for each ion but since each channels is disassembled once the ion balance is corrected, there will never be an excess of channels and never be a threat to the integrity of the cell.

It is, in any event, not the responsibility of a cell membrane to hold back water pressure but instead the electromagnetic forces within the cell are responsible for maintaining cellular structure and intracellular water density.

Ling’s calculations

Gilbert Ling’s calculations as to the amount of energy required are almost certainly in error or at least irrelevant.

The science of physics has grown up largely in mechanical laboratory experiments and has proved wholly inadequate for the description of biological systems. Ling cannot therefore hope to make accurate predictions using such an inappropriate tool.

The existence of unmeasurable ‘vital’ energy complicates things further and the non-Newtonian nature of intracellular water makes such calculations an impossibility: A fractal electromagnetic vortex field as the basis for vital energy

The squid experiment

The cytoplasm was removed from the giant nerve fibre of a squid and the axon sac filled with “sea water containing the right nutrients“. However the membrane failed to maintain the correct concentrations of sodium and potassium

Yes, the cytoplasm could not maintain the correct biofield structure as it is now just water and without the correct energies a channel cannot form and ions cannot be pumped. The seawater contained the correct nutrients but not the correct electromagnetic energy structure.

The frog experiment

A frog muscle was sliced to produce “effectively membrane-less open ended cell” which continued to regulate both sodium and potassium

The biofield in this experiment remained largely intact and able to create, in an instant, a new channel through which to pump ions via electromagnetic field forces.

Biofield assembly

The assembly of the illustrated ion channels is via an invisible living biofield but such prominence is given to ‘matter’ in scientific texts that it is imagined that complex biological structures are assembled by matter itself. Organs will either ‘self-assemble’ or are assembled by other pieces of matter.

If the latter is the case, then we have to ask what it is that organises these other pieces of matter – presumably some other pieces of matter? This idea is clearly untenable as matter is just matter and has no intrinsic organisational capability as far a biological systems are concerned.

Summary

Biological systems are created and maintained by a dynamic biofield which is ever adapting to the needs of the organism as a whole.

Kinetic movement or physical changes are initiated by the field itself.

The field is invisible to the eye and unmeasurable with contemporary instruments, with only the biological response to suggest its presence.

Physical artefacts such as ion channels are a consequence of biofield activity and not the cause.

The dominant motive forces in biological systems are electromagnetic in nature.

References

1. Debunking the Alleged Resurrection of the Sodium Pump Hypothesis – Gilbert N Ling http://www.physiologicalchemistryandphysics.com/pdf/PCP29-123_ling.pdf
2. The membrane theory and other views for solute permeability, distribution, and transport of living cells – Ling , Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. 9:87, 1965
3. Three sets of independent disproofs against the membrane-pump theory – Rae West https://www.big-lies.org/harold-hillman-biology/lp6a.htm
4. Catacuzzeno L, Michelucci A, Franciolini F. The crucial decade that ion channels were proven to exist : The vision of Bertil Hille and Clay Armstrong and how it came through. Pflugers Arch. 2025 Jul;477(7):903-917. doi: 10.1007/s00424-025-03085-5. Epub 2025 Apr 22. PMID: 40261416; PMCID: PMC12152087.